


The Spell will be Broken

by SpaceWaffleHouseTM



Series: One Shots from the Waffle House [12]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst and Fluff, Angst with a Happy Ending, Ben is cursed, Ben’s single gray hair saves the day, Cuddling, F/M, First Kiss, Immortality, No Pregnancy, let them be happy, they are soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-27 00:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20939441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWaffleHouseTM/pseuds/SpaceWaffleHouseTM
Summary: Cursed with immortality until he finds his soulmate, Ben Solo has given up on love. Now, three centuries later, he just about faints when his roommate, Rey, plucks a grey hair from his temple.





	The Spell will be Broken

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Reylo_prompts’ reyloworth1000words challenge. I know the challenge is 1000 words but this one was worth twice that and probably more tbh. I had to break the rules, but hopefully it’s worth it?
> 
> **and another apology for mild deviations from the prompt because he’s very much in love with her 😂

His three hundredth birthday marks the beginning of the end. The candles that he’s just blown out proudly display the numbers on a tiny cake his roommate bought from the grocery store—and fully intend on eating later, after Rey’s done fulfilling the need to braid his hair for the occasion—and mentally, he can feel the backaches and the wrinkles setting in from old age. Physically, though, he’s at his peak, just like the warlock had promised when he’d cast the curse upon his servant. 

He’d betrayed a man he never should’ve betrayed, and he’d been paying the ultimate price for it since America was made of thirteen colonies. He’d been cursed to live as an immortal, unable to die by anything known to man or the universe until he found his soulmate, the person destiny has chosen as the one he’s meant to be with. 

Ever since that day he’s been unable to age, and he’s had to watch everything and everyone around him die as the years turned to decades, then centuries. It’s hurt him more than he can bear to think, and he’s grown tired, so tired of loss, and loving people only to lose them all too soon. 

In those three hundred years, he’s given up on finding love, on finding human affection altogether. Instead, he watches from afar, observes humanity as they wither away, and keeps close but never touches if he can help it to prevent both people and himself from becoming scarred. 

At least, he did until he moved into this apartment with the woman who is now weaving her hands through his hair, pulling it back into a braid as she laughs, tipsy from the wine they’ve been drinking. He hadn’t meant to get close to Rey, really, he hadn’t, but she’d needed a place to stay and well, she was his favorite coworker at the nearby university. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t grow attached if he gave her his spare bedroom for a quarter of the rent, and that had gone to hell very quickly. 

Ben was now head over heels for her, and he wasn’t going to stop falling anytime soon. His only hope now was for the warlock’s curse to break, for her to be the one that he was finally able to grow old with. 

But that hadn’t happened in three miserable centuries, so why would it happen now?

Rey tugs a bit tightly on the little section of hair she’s braiding, causing him to wince as she mutters an apology, but he isn’t really hurt. He’s glad of the tiny pinch of pain, of the reminder that she’s still there, still alive at his side though he spends his every waking minute already thinking of her as a ghost. 

“Would you hold still? I’ll tear all your hair out if we’re not careful,” Rey mutters, causing him to laugh as he tilts his head to spare her a glance. 

“Rey you’re not braiding my entire head.”

“Maybe not, but you’ll have a rather sexy bald spot for a few decades, I bet.”

“I doubt anything about a bald spot could ever be sexy,” he replies, and this time she’s the one laughing. 

His roommate stops braiding for a second, then he sees her lips part as if she’s about to say something, but she stops, and a tiny, disbelieving scoff comes out. “Ben, have you always had a gray hair?”

The world stops spinning. “What?” This is a joke, right? She’s playing a prank on him, isn’t she? It’s impossible. It can’t be. Three hundred years—

“Yeah,” she replies, then another pinch occurs on his scalp as she plucks the hair from his head, then holds it out in front of him. “Perfectly silver.”

Ben’s heart begins to race as he looks at it. In all his long life, he’s never had a single gray hair. No wrinkles, no age spots, no aches or pains, and certainly no gray hairs. He knows what this means. His body knows before his mind does, and he lets out a shaky, winded breath. “ _ Holy shit _ .”

“That wasn’t there before, was it?” Rey asked tentatively, and he knows she’s aware of what’s happening as he shakes his head. The curse is broken. He’s found his soulmate, and human beings age slowly enough that he would’ve met them years ago, giving that gray hair just enough time to sprout and grow—

_ He’s been living with Rey for two years.  _

Her hands fall from his hair, allowing him to turn around as his jaw falls slack and his entire body grows hot from how fast his heart is pumping blood through his veins. “It’s you,” he breathes, knowing he must be looking at her differently now that he knows what she is to him, now that she’s broken his curse. 

Hazel eyes blink back at him in wonder, and one of her hands finds his face as she whispers his name, sounding equally as shocked but delighted as he does.  _ Has she been falling for him, too? _

Ben doesn’t say anything, he just turns around on the couch, and wraps his arms around her, pulling his roommate—his  _ soulmate _ —close as a lump forms in his throat, and tears of pure, unspeakable joy spring to his eyes. Her name falls from his lips over and over again, and he can feel her hands coming up to stroke his hair as she returns his embrace, holding him as tightly as he’s holding her. 

For so long, he’s been stagnant, he’s been trapped in a cruel prison of a man long dead’s making. Now he’s free, and he’s been free, but now he  _ knows  _ it. He’s dynamic, he’s changing, he’s finally growing older, and he knows without a shadow of a doubt that it’s because of  _ her.  _

He pulls back from the embrace, taking her face in his hands just to look at her for a few seconds before he rests his forehead against hers. His thumbs gently stroke her cheeks, and he’s never touched her like this, but now that he knows who she is, he needs to. Judging by the way she looks at him, she  _ wants  _ him to. “Three hundred years,” he whispers, his voice trembling so hard he hopes it's understandable. 

“I know.”

“I’m free.”

She nods gently, “You are,” she says, and he feels her hands stroke his hair, ruining the braid she created but he can’t be bothered to give a shit. After all this time, he’s found his soulmate, and he’s finally going to get to grow old with someone like he’s always dreamed of doing—all because they happened to be assigned the same office space two years earlier. If that wasn’t a stroke of destiny, he didn’t know what was. 

Excitement is running through his veins, and he feels like a veil has been lifted as he pulls back again to look at her. “Is this okay?” he asks, his voice small and barely steady as he speaks. “Do you—do you even want this? If you don’t, I’ll back away, I’ll leave, but I have to be sure.” He swallows his nerves, then runs his thumb gently over her cheek again. “Have you been… have you needed me, too?”

Another laugh escapes her, and then one of her hands slips down to grip his shoulder. “Do you know how much time I’ve spent since the moment you told me about your curse wishing it was me?” she asked, her voice tinged with disbelief and a longing he knew all too well. “I’ve wanted this from the day we met, Ben, I just… I didn’t want to say anything if I wasn’t—“ She gestures to herself, then she rests her hand on his chest, undoubtedly able to feel his heart pounding against her palm. “Cause I didn’t want to love you and leave you like everyone else.”

“You won’t,” he promises, then he pulls her back to him in another embrace, whispering the words against her neck as the tears spill forth from his eyes. “You saved me, Rey. I—Thank you.”

Rey gives him a weak laugh, then she whispers something unintelligible as her fingers continue combing themselves through his hair. “I didn’t do anything.”

There isn’t anything he can say to that, and so he just wraps his arms around her a little more tightly, and pulls them both down onto their sides, lying along the length of their living room couch as they hold each other properly for the first time. Rey brings her feet up onto the couch, the toe of the shoes she’s still wearing nudging his shin as she adjusts herself until she’s comfortable, then she tilts her head up to look at him. In her eyes, he can see worry and confusion, and concern fills him as he wonders what’s wrong now. “Are you okay?”

“Are you sure it’s me?” she whispers, her fingers gripping the fabric of his flannel like she’s afraid he’ll slip away if she doesn’t. “What if it’s someone you ran into on the street?”

His answer comes to him easily somehow, even though he’s still somewhat terrified out of his wits by the prospect of telling her how he feels. “Rey, in all my years, I’ve never felt as strongly for anyone as I feel for you,” he admits. “That’s how I know. It can’t be anyone else. It’s… it’s you. It’s always been you.”

She gives him a tiny grin, the corners of her mouth tilting upward ever so slightly as she leans in a little closer to him. “Good.”

“You really want to do this, then? With me?” he asks quietly, and all he has to do is look into her eyes to know that she’s said yes. She wants this as badly as he does, and his heart is leaping with joy as he leans forward a little more, reuniting his forehead with hers, and reveling in the warmth of her skin against his. A tentative question forms in his mind, and after three hundred years, he doesn’t want to wait to ask it. He wants to start experiencing everything he can now that his life has a time limit again. “Can I… can I kiss you?”

Her breath catches in her throat, then she spreads her palm out over his chest again, and gives him a tiny little sound of approval. “Do it,” she says, and he doesn’t hesitate. 

Not a single thought flies through his head as he leans forward, and touches his lips to hers. All there is as she returns his kiss is a feeling of warmth, like curling up in front of a fire on a rainy day or listening to waves crash on a shore. It’s a feeling he can only describe as coming home, like he’s been away on a great journey for far longer than he intended to, and he’s finally back where he belongs. 

Outside it’s overcast and drizzling, but right here he can feel the sun shining on his face, its golden rays warming him as he holds Rey in his arms, as she kisses him so softly he feels like he’s melted into a useless pile of a thing that used to be a man. It’s the most peaceful he’s ever felt, and any lingering doubt that his soulmate was just someone he met on the street vanishes with the growing intensity of the kiss. 

They seem to melt into one another, and now he knows what it means to be whole. He’s been walking around as only half a man for three centuries now, but she’s completed him, and he’s completed her. 

There will be no more nightmares, no more endless nights spent waiting to find someone who seems to always elude him. Now there is only serenity, there is only this, and he finally gets to go gray  _ with  _ someone. 

He gets to grow old with  _ Rey _ . 


End file.
